Would sandbag training fall into that category?
Would moving a desk?
I doubt we’ll finish this conversation sewing eye-to-eye (and that’s okay)
Regardless, do you believe, at a fundamental level, that the body is an adaptive organism?
What if I told you there are very few high quality studies that show we are able to reduce lifting injuries - especially considering powerlifting training has been shown to be one of the safest forms of exercise that exists.
What if I told you that lifting guidelines have never been shown to actually reduce the incidence of lower back injuries or time-loss from work due to injury?
Imagine I walk down the same street every morning between 7:50 and 8:00am to get a coffee from my favourite coffee shop. One day, I’m walking down the street and get hit by a drunk driver who was out far too late last night, and is now rushing to get to work on time still intoxicated from the previous night.
Was is the fault of my chosen route, the street or the coffee shop that I got hit?
I agree, but not for the same reasons as you do.
The body is a complex, adaptive organism. Complex systems are not neatly predictable, meaning it is impossible to guarantee that X stimulus will produce Y result, or that Y result was caused by X stimulus.
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Risk reward ratios of exercises (or actually, any stimulus including medicine, running, vegetables, alcohol, drugs, sunlight) do not exist independent of their dosage.
Without considering dosage, the optimists’ answer to this question is no, whilst the pessimists’ answer is yes
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This is an appeal-to-nature/appeal-to-tradition fallacy and it is a hallmark of the modern fitness industry.
That which is natural is not that which is best.
Dying at 30 is natural. Losing all your teeth is natural. Drinking unsanitised water is natural. I personally choose to partake in none of these things.
Resistance training is among the most highly-supported interventions to improve orthopaedic health, quality of life and life span
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I honestly think in their current state, the guidelines do more harm than good.
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I’ve never worked anywhere or done anything where anybody gave a rats ass about guidlines.
In fact, if somebody even tried to complain about lifting heavy/awkward without assistance or what ever, they would be laughed out of the place- Like for real, you just became that guy.
Bill Burr did a very good piece about this type of stuff. 
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That’s how it used to be. Now it’s a competition to see who can get more disability pay and time off.
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“Regardless, do you believe, at a fundamental level, that the body is an adaptive organism?”
Yes I agree with you there…but it works both ways. You can adapt positively or negatively. For example, you don’t fix bad posture by adopting bad posture regularly. That’s just more of the same which will make matters worse. That is not toughening the body up.
Running is a prime example of why your theory does not work. The annual running injury rate has been quoted as high as 75%. This is more prevalent among runners who are looking for fast times and / or logging heavy mileage. But why is this? Surely by your reckoning their bodies should be toughening up. But it is clearly not the case. Why is it that people can see the faults in other activities but not the one that they have an emotional investment in.
Your street / coffee shop analogy was also slightly flawed. When I lift, the chances of someone running into me and knocking me off balance are far, far less than the drunk driver example that you gave ( not impossible, granted, but unlikely).
You gave an example involving outside interference from another. Most if not all lifting injuries do not involve that, and are therefore down to the lifter’s personal choices. The analogy is not really relevant.
Anything that matches your goals without causing undue risk.
Deadlift 500lbs just for good health? Why? When will I NEED that ability in an EVERYDAY situation?
Sandbag training? Once again it depends on your goals. Are you entering a sandbag lifting competition? Or strongman event? Then have at it. You’ll need that ability. General health? Unlikely.
If you can lift a desk all by yourself, then not only are you a strong person, you are also a very large one also…
Why would our ancestors have lived longer if they had lifted heavier weights?
This is actually not logical reasoning.
Firstly anything that was NOT necessary to do, that had a risk to it, and a chance of injury, would have been foolish to do, if it didn’t contribute to the goal of survival and procreation. If you were injured back then, you were out of the game and probably going to die. Believe it or not orthopaedic surgery and sports medicine were not available.
(By the way…it’s called sports MEDICINE for a reason)
Secondly any increased muscle from such lifting was metabolically costly. It would have required more calories to maintain. Difficult when you caught your food and food was scarce. It would have also slowed them down. A negative considering that they moved so much in order to obtain food. Modern day hunter gatherers are hardly stacked like Mentzer.
It was about efficiency of effort. Even Lieberman, the guy who gave us the idea that humans were born to run, states that this was a infrequent activity, done relatively slowly, and only as long as it took to get the job done…perhaps once a week, depending on circumstances.
I’ve yet to see any interview with a centenarian where they boast about lifting or running PB’s. Have you? Most, if not all, we’re active, but average. Look at the people in the blue zones, or videos of elderly active Chinese people working out in parks. There are some who are very strong in terms of their body weight and impressive with feats of callisthenics, but they are generally slightly built and I have yet to see one lifting huge poundages.
“Somewhat, but there’s a time and a place. I think back to doing heavy goodmornings. So should you ever tabletop a squat you won’t fold up and die.The idea being, you have to be strong enough to overcome a bad position. So train in a bad position with MODERATE intensity to prepare your body. It has a valid place, but should be trained intelligently.”
So you train to avoid a bad position by doing more of the same? Just with lighter weight and MORE reps. Which provide more chances for the spine to mess up. Are you aware of McGill’s experiments with spines? And how repeated flexion/ extensions over time led to degradation.
The simple solution would be to squat in a power cage and set the bottom stops at an appropriate height, plus to not be too ambitious with the weight you are using. OR ( heaven forbid) make a rational assessment and if the squat is a bad movement for your body levers and limb lengths (it was for me) and barbell squatting was not an important match for your goals…drop it entirely. Heresy…I know.
Gonna be honest, I’m very confused on what the point of this thread is. Are you asking if lifting heavy is needed or beneficial for longevity?
Most people lift heavy simply because they like to or it’s required for their sport. For someone with a disability like me, I know that lifting is not healthy and is counter-productive. But I simply enjoy moving heavy things and that’s all that matters to me. Besides, even I never go heavy, there’s a chance I’ll be a mess in old age anyway. So why not enjoy my youth and lift heavy as long as I can?
Your confusion is probably down to what you state in your last sentence. You are young. I am less so. I’m my younger years, my viewpoint was drastically different ( wish it was more like it is now…but you can’t change the past, just the present). I was all about PB’s and pushing my limits when I was younger. But what for? I wasn’t getting paid for it. It didn’t improve my health any more so than a more modest approach ( and more and more research is pointing to this…as well as countless amounts of anecdotal evidence) and the only person who cared about my accomplishments was…me. So I was investing time, effort and multiplying the risk, for a few percentage points of improvement over what a more modest approach would have given me. For what? I sacrificed in other areas because of that.
The Parillo 80/20 approach is very applicable in this scenario.
The point of this thread is to discuss the issues of matching approaches to goals. Which I feel is very relevant if the goal is general health only. Of course, if you have a passion for something ( as I did once) then your goals WILL be different. But time does change people’s perspective on things.
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You say so yourself:
You did it because you cared about accomplishing something. So do most people here. Intrinsic motivation is how people find joy in life.
I don’t see why someone training for general health would bother using the forum of a website with a tagline of being “elite.”Jog/swim/walk/row a few times a week, do some push ups and pull ups, and eat in a way which doesn’t result in being grossly over or underweight. That’s literally all there is to it.
Alternatively…
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I have Elhers-Danlos, or as I like to joke, was born with the body of an 80 year old haha. At the age of 19 - 20, my joints started falling apart randomly like that of an old person (I literally tore both of my hip labrums walking lol). So I understand your concern. Yeah, going with a more modest approach is perfectly fine, especially with one built for longevity. John Meadows’ training style would be perfect.
Truthfully, if you just want to be healthy and mobile, I don’t see why you need to lift weights at all beyond some bodyweight stuff. My grandpa and great-grandparents in India were healthy and could could walk/jog/bike into their 80s - early 90s, and they never lifted outside of farm work and some heavy house chores. They walked and biked endlessly, though.
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Jog/swim/walk/row a few times a week, do some push ups and pull ups, and eat in a way which doesn’t result in being grossly over or underweight. That’s literally all there is to it.
Yep, my grandpas and great grandparents can/could attest to this, though it was far easier to eat healthy before foods became very processed.
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My family are a bit on the small side, so a little supplementary lifting, especially as I get older is probably a good thing, so that I can continue to stave off muscle loss and strength decreases as I age and maintain a good quality of life and independence in my daily activities for as long as possible.
What I don’t want to do is go overboard and adopt an approach that doesn’t fit these goals, but instead serves loftier ambitions, and then perhaps injure myself ( perhaps seriously and long term), because if I can’t train due to that, it then makes any current training I’m doing pretty futile.
“I don’t see why someone training for general health would bother using the forum of a website with a tagline of being “elite.”
Because having lurked here ( and on Dr Darden’s old forum for a number of years) I can honestly say that I don’t think that everyone who posts is “elite”, or even competitive.
My apologies if I have got that assumption incorrect.
Most aren’t (I’m certainly not,) but I think the big distinction here is that pretty much everyone on the forum is training with the intent of improving towards that status, rather than just reaching a level they’re content with and trying to maintain it as they age (not to say this isn’t a valid goal - if I can spend my whole life being active then I’d be very pleased).
The subforum this is posted in is titled “bigger, stronger, leaner.” At some point, training for these will necessarily run counter to one’s health. It’s just a matter of priorities, and most people here have different ones than you do.
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